In connection with the mineralogy of Shropshire, it should be recorded that the extremely rare instance of the fall of an iron meteorite in the British Isles took place in this county at Rowton, near Wellington, on April 20th, 1876. This meteorite was extracted by Mr. G. Brooks, from the hole in which it had buried itself, and was hot when removed. It is now in the possession of the British Museum, and Prof. Maskelyne has given particulars of it in “Nature,” vol. xiv., p. 472. It weighs 7 lbs. 11 oz., “is a mass of metallic iron irregularly angular, although all its edges appear to have been rounded by fusion in its transit through the air, and, except at the point where it first struck the ground, it is covered by a thin black pellicle of the magnetic oxide of iron … the exposed metallic part of the surface exhibits crystalline structure very clearly when it is etched. It is only the seventh aërosiderite or meteoric iron of which the fall has been witnessed, although upwards of a hundred iron masses have been discovered in different parts of the globe, which are undoubtedly meteoric, and two such have been found in Great Britain.”[69]
Warwickshire.—Many years ago a pocket of Grey Oxide of Manganese was found near Atherstone, but I have been unable to find now any traces of it. Gypsum occurs in the cutting of a disused railway near Henley-in-Arden, and at Spernall (Spernall Plaster Pits), near Alcester. Mr. A. H. Atkins has called attention to the fact that gypsum was met with in sinking an artesian well in Small Heath Park, near Birmingham; he also mentions the occurrence of Green Copper Carbonate at Vaughton’s Hole, near Birmingham.
Worcestershire.—Dr. Harvey B. Holl mentions the following minerals as occurring at the Malvern Hills:—Quartz, Orthoclase, Labradorite, Anderine, Potash Mica, Ferruginous Mica (Biolite), Augite, Hornblende, Epidote, Chlorite, Hæmatite, Calc Spar, Graphite, Zeolites, and Garnet.
[The following articles refer to subjects which could not be included in previous papers, and which are yet worth notice as part of the history of Birmingham.—Ed.]
Botanical Gardens.—[Sam: Timmins.]—The first proposal to establish Botanical Gardens, in accordance with the science of horticulture of the time, was made in 1829. Twelve acres were secured in the then rural suburb of Edgbaston, and on the advice of the famous J. C. Loudon four more acres were added, and the buildings erected by Clarke of Birmingham, and opened to the public in 1831. The original capital was 500 shares of £5 each, and an annual payment of three guineas which secured certain privileges of admission beyond those of the subscriber’s payment. The institution flourished, with some vicissitudes, for many years, but was necessarily exclusive, and only recently have admissions been made more easy by reduced and varying charges on different days. On Monday—the people’s day—large numbers attend, and the experiment has proved successful. The buildings were recently greatly extended and rearranged from the designs of Mr. Frank Osborne, and are now believed to be amongst the best of the kingdom. Flower shows are held during the summer, and prizes awarded, which are eagerly contended for by numerous horticulturists and florists of the town and neighbourhood.
Guinea Gardens.—[Sam: Timmins.]—Near the Botanical Gardens a group of small gardens may be seen, which are the only “survivals” of the acres of “allotment gardens” or “guinea gardens,” which surrounded Birmingham within a mile from the centre as late as 1830 to 1840. Birmingham was, in fact, a town of gardens fifty years ago, not merely as to the gardens attached to houses—front and back gardens in the principal parts of the town,—but of the groups of gardens rented by workmen and others, who could reach their gardens easily from their homes by a short walk, and devote mornings and evenings to them. The sites of the Kent Street Baths, and those opposite St. Thomas’s Church,—at Ladywood, Spring Hill, Hockley, Handsworth, and Aston road,—all within the Parish Boundary, formed a belt of gardens where the workman and his family often spent the summer evenings and enjoyed the (then) country air. All is now changed, and the distances even by rail and tram are too great, and land too valuable, to be let out in readily accessible gardens for the workers of the town, who cannot for many reasons live in the suburbs which railways have opened since 1840.
Sunday Lecture Society.—[Thos. Rose.]—This Society, which has now become one of the most successful of our local institutions, had a very humble origin. In 1877, a few members of the Birmingham Temperance Society (foremost amongst whom was Mr. Thos. Hewins), conceived the idea of holding Meetings on Sunday evenings “for the social, moral, and intellectual improvement of the non-church and chapel-going portion of the community.” They accordingly formed themselves into a Committee, who engaged the then newly erected Board Schools in Bristol Street, for the winter season of 1877-8, and commenced what were described as “Sunday Evening Meetings for the People.” For a short time these meetings were of a purely temperance character, but finding that they were not so thoroughly appreciated as they had expected, the Committee extended the variety of the subjects, and lectures were delivered embracing a wide range of thought, both moral and religious, literary and dramatic, scientific and historical, occasionally interspersed with musical evenings illustrative of the principal oratorios. Foremost amongst the lecturers (who numbered many of our chief local literary and scientific men), was Mr. Sam: Timmins, who from the first took an active part in the movement, the success of which was from this time assured, the lectures being attended by crowded and appreciative audiences every Sunday evening, and occasionally hundreds were unable to obtain admission.
In 1880, the then Mayor (Alderman R. Chamberlain), generously offered the Committee the free use of the Town Hall, and for some months the lectures were delivered consecutively in that place to audiences numbering from 3 to 4,000 each Sunday. This gave rise to considerable opposition on the part of the various religious sects of the town against what was considered to be “a monopoly of the use of the hall by one particular sect,” and after much controversy in the public press, and debate in the Town Council, the question of the letting of the Town Hall on Sundays was left in the hands of the Mayor for the time being, on the understanding that its continuous use by any one sect should be refused. Thereupon the lectures were resumed in the Bristol Street Board School, with occasional special lectures in the Town Hall.